tsarkar wrote:Chacko, you are getting personal, and I'll ignore that aspect of your post. You're completely missing my overall message, and I have communicated enough information. I'll leave it to readers to form their opinions from my statements.
Followed byNot sure where you get these specs from, but the ones I know is atleast 100 km for 5 m sq target, that is pretty normal even in 1985.
tsarkar, so the timelines are shifting wrt the range from mid 80s to late80s/early 90s? It represents a spectrum from min of 3-4 years to a 5-7 at max right?As also the Phazotron N019E Sapfir 29 in the MiG29 delivered late 80s / early90s to guide the SARH R-27 to 70 odd km.
AOA
Weight of Zhuk
The Zhuk has a weight of 220 kg and uses a 680mm electronically scanned slotted planar array antenna which offers a detection range of 90 km against a target with a 5 m2 radar cross-section (RCS). The radar can track 10-12 targets while engaging 2-4 of them with a scanning area of +/- 90 degrees in azimuth and +55/-40 degrees in elevation;[3] its power output was rated at 5 kW peak.[4]
Zhuk-MS (Export Designation Zhuk-MSE): The radar has a weight of 255 kg and a scanning area of +/- 85 degrees in azimuth and +56/-40 degrees in elevation.[5]
We are scoring a self goal here , that 60 ton tank has higher power to weight ratio and lower ground pressure psq" than the T-90 with latest 1100HP powerpack. Lets not bring Arjun into this.chackojoseph wrote:This the same argument I remember for Arjun Tank. Army did not ask for 60 ton tank. But, the specifications led to 60 tons.
I was replying tonegi wrote: We are scoring a self goal here , that 60 ton tank has higher power to weight ratio and lower ground pressure psq" than the T-90 with latest 1100HP powerpack. Lets not bring Arjun into this.
This explanation has been the bane of all indigenous project. The same argument was put forward by both IAF and IA personnel when I spoke to them. Tsarkar brings in the same argument.Please note design weight is arrived by ADA/developers based on capability requirements provided by IAF/user. Users specify only capability, not specifications.
Still better would have been to realize all this before starting the project, minimize the risks and go for a twin engined Kaveri @ 65 kN. The indigenous industry and the IAF and thus the nation would have been better off.tsarkar wrote:^^ Very simple
If following US philosophy use advancement in software and microelectronics so that 84 kN F404 is good enough for overall low weight including 100-130 kg radar. (Tejas, Gripen)
If following Soviet/Russian philosophy, use bigger engine 122 kN Al-31F to compensate for the weight of bulkier systems including 240 kg radar. (J10) For all the 122 kN, I bet the J-10 cannot carry any more payload than Tejas. The Al-31F engine will suck fuel and decrease range/endurance like crazy.
Problem arises when we have Indian weight levels, ie wrong weights at wrong places, with American engine. Then you need 98 kN F414.
It is in the very first line. There is no way in hell any plane can have a 2ton MTOW increase without strengthening. What they did was increase the percentage of composites from A/B to C/D. Per the info I have, it increased from around 25 odd % to close to 35% or so for the C/D model. In fact Saab Aero would be very very cross with you if you said that he Gripen is a "metal" plane. So lets put that piece of fiction to rest. It uses a lot of composites by any measure. Sure the Tejas uses more, but it does weigh less !tsarkar wrote:Vina, nowhere in that document are structural changes mentioned.
Well, the Gripen C/D is close to 35% or so. The Swedes went to BAe and got an all composite wing made for them. The composites were NOT risky . In fact that was the LEAST risky part of the LCA design. What was more risky was the FBW. But without that, you cannot have a modern plane. In fact, the Swedes used the same FBW vendor (Calspan) that India was using to develop the FBW (the swedes got it off the shelf) and despite being off the shelf , they had huge problems with the FBW which CALSPAN debugged and fixed for them.don’t need to google, those who operate and maintain the birds, as well as my own eyes have seen that Gripen ABCD isn’t 45% of weight in composites like Tejas is. And frankly, the Swedes do respect Indians for all-composite-wings-and-empennage decision, it was a bold and respectable decision from a development perspective, though risky and time consuming from a user perspective.
Oh no, it doesn't. The A/C have a 2 ton MTOW difference. In fact in the Gripen A, the forward fuel tank of close to 300kg was UNUSABLE, basically dead weight . So there you are! It got fully enabled only in C/D I think. In fact the A model of Gripen has LESS usable load than the MK1 , even on paper!. With the C version with full internal fuel, the useful payload is nearly the same as the Mk1!I would have been impressed, Vina, if you used the words, better maneuverability, STR, payload, etc. The Gripen A/C still carries more useful load than Tejas Mk.1, despite Tejas Mk1 having “more powerful engine”
.I will reserve my opinion until I can compare the actual performances of the Mk.2 vs NG
Look around the other way, a designer designs a plane with similar capabilities knowing fully well no catapult is available. That too is an achievement!
How do you know that an off the shelf analog system would have worked perfectly without going through an entire development cycle ?. It didn't work for the Gripen without major problems!The analogue system was not even considered by ADA. It is incidents like this,
That was just a little step up from the continuous wave Cryanos of the earlier Mirage IIIs . The performance was no great shakes, it's A2A mode was actually inferior to the radars in the Mig 29As and there was lot of ground clutter thrown up in the A2G. It really wasn't the best out there by a long shot. All that was probably upgraded fixed subsequently.You need to compare with Thomson RDM radar in service with Mirage 2000 in late 80s early 90s.
If you are talking about stuff like GMTI, SAR, ISAR and all the whiz bang A2G stuff, well it didn't.Thomson RDM already had these modes and A2A performance in 80s & 90’s.
The SU-30 MKI attained full capability only much later (in series III or something right) ? I doubt that the Bars had all those modes working or even if it was installed in a SU-27 back in 1996! We signed up for a development program which promised to bring those capabilities in at a future date!Su-30 MKI package was signed in November 1996. Hence IAF knew the capabilities of the Kopyo and Bars very well in 1996.
That part sounds pretty accurate to me.So “No IAF fighter has had these features before Kopyo radar in late 2000's”
Nope . It is closer to 40 years. Why MRCA contest is seeing 2 airframes which debuted close to 40 years ago being quite competitve after 40 years and upgrades. No one produces anything for a production run of 18 aircraft. A metal+ analog plane would have been a complete waste of time and a severe duplication of effort when that effort could (and was) directed towards a plane that would be contemporary for a much longer time. Thank goodness we didn't do that thing in the 90s. The time to do that was in the late 70s/early 80s when they should have played around with an Ajeet or something and built an FBW version of that and proven the tech as the proposals that were put up at around that time showed (like the Brits did with a Jaguar and French with the Mirage III). That the IAF and MoD were hell bent of importing stuff and found any tech development wasteful and superflous meant that the tech development had to be done in a TD program for the LCA!The lifetime of an airframe is typically 20 years, extended to 30 by upgrades. Speculating if there was a metal+analogue FBW LCA 1990-2010 followed by a composite+digital FBW LCA 2010 onwards, the 1990-2010 birds could have aptly served the role that 18 Su-30K birds did from 1997-2007.
Why did the ACM not say Mig 21++. You can replace a couple of operational squadrons of Mig 21 right awayToday, in my personal opinion, the first 20 tranche and the next 20 tranche should be completely trainers, used extensively, and retired when Mk2 enters service.
. Why do you want to use them as trainers?ShauryaT wrote: Still better would have been to realize all this before starting the project, minimize the risks and go for a twin engined Kaveri @ 65 kN.
as you all know nothing is available off the shelf which meets requirements according to our country so either we develop it on our own or pay to get such specs.chackojoseph wrote:This the same argument I remember for Arjun Tank. Army did not ask for 60 ton tank. But, the specifications led to 60 tons.
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The radar weight calculation is something we need to work on. Zhuk is 200 odd and elta is just 100 kg. Someone has an idea?
In hindsight that should have been a risk reduction approach right at the begining. However recall the severe funding constraints in the early 90s would have killed it. And the bean counters would have whined about two different planes and the costs.Speculating if there was a metal+analogue FBW LCA 1990-2010 followed by a composite+digital FBW LCA 2010 onwards
That idea is a non starter. Today with a large % composite and a full digital FBW plane which compares very well with the closed competitor, we have the IAF chief whining and calling it a Mig 21++ . No way in hell any IAF chief would have accepted a plane from a domestic source which they would consider as "technologically obsolete" and reduced capability (note they will gleefully accept a less than full version/initial capability plane with promise to upgrade in future from a FOREIGN source gleefully.. case in point Mirage 2000 and SU-30 , both of which the intial versions India got had far less capability than the fully developed versions).In hindsight that should have been a risk reduction approach right at the begining. However recall the severe funding constraints in the early 90s would have killed it. And the bean counters would have whined about two different planes and the costs.
OT :aditya.agd wrote:From LCA experience, I think the Project Management discipline needs to be enforced in all DRDO projects.
In IT, it is applied, where 80% of SAP project are either considered failure or non starters. And professionals called PMPs are employed to produce garbage in form of xls and mpp.Added later - P Chitkara - As also the Phazotron N019E Sapfir 29 in the MiG29 delivered late 80s / early90s to guide the SARH R-27 to 70 odd km.
please check out this link and i quote relevant parts -Weight is a separate question. Typical Sapfir weight were 220-250 kg,
N019 / Rubin / RPLK-29 / S-29 / Sapfir-29
The N019 radar weighs around 385kg in total.
http://aerospace.boopidoo.com/philez/Su ... ionics.htmA typical 3 sq m RCS fighter target can be detected at 50-70 km and tracked at 40-60 km. If the target is flying below 3,000m reduces the detection range to 40-70 km and tracking range to 30-60km.
you may be right. but if you go thro' the article i linked in my post, it clearly says -negi wrote:Pragnya I am not sure if all the IAF Fulcrums are upgraded upto Fulcrum-C but iirc we don't have baseline N019E on our Fulcrums we have the export version of the Topaz M i.e Topaz ME or N019ME with some MKI giri done to fire the R-77s. The Topaz ME weighs around 350Kgs and has a tracking range of 70km against a fighter sized target i.e. frontal RCS of 3sq mtrs.
IOW they are less capable versions which makes it even more difficult to accept tsarkar's claim of it guiding an R 27 to 70km!!N019ME Topaz Export version of Topaz, slightly downgraded. All Indian MiG-29s have been upgraded to this standard.
agree with you.TSarkar perhaps got Zhuk-ME weight mixed up with the Topaz-ME.
All the Fulcrums initially delivered were Mig-29 A/B, we made a subsequent order for 10 which were Mig-29 C Standard.negi wrote:Pragnya I am not sure if all the IAF Fulcrums are upgraded upto Fulcrum-C but iirc we don't have baseline N019E on our Fulcrums we have the export version of the Topaz M i.e Topaz ME or N019ME with some MKI giri done to fire the R-77s. The Topaz ME weighs around 350Kgs and has a tracking range of 70km against a fighter sized target i.e. frontal RCS of 3sq mtrs.
TSarkar perhaps got Zhuk-ME weight mixed up with the Topaz-ME.
no disagreement and that is possible. but even if i take the standard russian version the ranges mentioned are 50-70km for detection and 40-60km for tracking!!! which means you can only fire at ranges below 60km in the best case scenario.negi wrote:Pragnya all Russian weapons have a corresponding export version in this case the designation is 'E' . However I am not sure the degradation in the question is in terms of detention/tracking range with Radars the usual practice is to remove a mode or two or dumb down the SW to reduce the number of targets that can be engaged simultaneously.
After the high profile Phazotron guy Alexander Tolkachev compromised the details of the avionics and radar fit on the Mig-23M,Mig-29,Mig-31 and A-50 to the west,the russians wanted big changes in radar and avionics suite on the respective aircraft if completely new fits were'nt out of the question.
Enter the N-019M Topaz.Instead of a twist cassegrain on the original N-019 Slot back,it uses a mechanically scanned slotted flat plate antenna.and the RLPK-29M radar aiming kompleks with Ts101 digital computer,SYeI-31-1E integrated display and SUO-29M4 armament control system.Phazotron's figures include a 75 km track in lookup and 65 km track in lookdown modes.(Compared to the ~80 km detect of a 3 sq.m target by a the Slot back).This system could also be offered with a ground mapping mode.
The Mig-29N/SD/SE differs in having the slightly downgraded RLPK-29ME radar aiming system and the N-019ME which was'nt really much differant from the original topaz.The OEPrNK-29-1E was untouched.Malaysian Mig-29Ns have ARN-139 TACAN and american ILS and IFF.
3rd phase: I dunno. Can anyone tell me? Is it modifications to enable use of Kh-27T?
It's to double the maximum warload capacity from 2000 to 4000 kg.
BTW Here's a funny looking Alamo-C:
Merlin, like others, you are confusing capabilities with means. The Prithvi's USP is that it used modest means for standard capabilitiesmerlin wrote:They jumped because nothing in that area was available from external sources, not because it was modest in capabilities.
But a Prithvi should be more sophisticated than a Scud no?tsarkar wrote:Merlin, you are confusing capabilities with means. The Prithvi's USP is that it used modest means for standard capabilitiesmerlin wrote:They jumped because nothing in that area was available from external sources, not because it was modest in capabilities.
Ofcourse external sources were available for 150-250 km missiles. The Najibullah regime in Afghanistan was supplied loads of Scuds and Frogs, so were the Iraqis & Iranis, no reason why we couldnt be supplied with Scuds or something better. We only had to ask in those bhai-bhai days.
Chako you are a journalist. I was a journalist. At the outset let me congratulate you on the work you are doing..You are a few of the posters i read..chackojoseph wrote:The problem with tsarkar's view is that, he holds weight as a deviation and rest of the parameters as constant. He has been fanatic about it. If one points out similar incidents and examples around, he refuses to acknowledge it.ks_sachin wrote:Good post tsarkar......
This thread has been quite educative with all the various opinions.....
And between the various opinions is the truth and it is a shade of grey.....
Hindsight as is said is 20:20
cheers
For example, even with all the composites used in LCA, the fact is that it has put on weight. It means that things have changed. The plane weight has been cut down by designers as much as possible, without resorting to use of toilet paper or balsa wood. He says that plane should have not gained weight. We are asking how it is possible? He also says that newer components should not add weight. One cannot understand his logic.
he says LCA designers should have kept in mind that weight issues can crop up in worlds smallest lightest combat aircraft.